🔗 Share this article

Merely fifteen minutes following Celtic issued the news of their manager's shock resignation via a brief five-paragraph communication, the bombshell arrived, from the major shareholder, with clear signs in obvious anger.

In 551-words, key investor Desmond savaged his former ally.

The man he persuaded to come to the team when their rivals were gaining ground in 2016 and needed putting in their place. Plus the man he again relied on after the previous manager left for another club in the summer of 2023.

Such was the ferocity of Desmond's critique, the jaw-dropping return of the former boss was almost an after-thought.

Twenty years after his departure from the organization, and after much of his latter years was dedicated to an continuous series of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his past successes at the team, O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

For now - and maybe for a while. Based on comments he has said lately, O'Neill has been keen to secure another job. He will see this one as the perfect opportunity, a gift from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the place where he experienced such success and praise.

Would he give it up readily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic could possibly reach out to sound out Postecoglou, but O'Neill will serve as a soothing presence for the time being.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - as surreal as it is - can be parked because the biggest 'wow!' moment was the brutal manner the shareholder described the former manager.

This constituted a full-blooded attempt at defamation, a branding of him as untrustful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of misinformation; divisive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-preservation at the cost of others," wrote he.

For somebody who prizes decorum and places great store in business being conducted with confidentiality, if not complete secrecy, here was another illustration of how abnormal things have become at the club.

Desmond, the organization's dominant figure, moves in the margins. The remote leader, the one with the authority to take all the important calls he pleases without having the obligation of explaining them in any open setting.

He does not attend team AGMs, sending his son, Ross, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives interviews about the team unless they're hagiographic in tone. And still, he's slow to speak out.

He has been known on an occasion or two to support the club with private messages to news outlets, but nothing is made in the open.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to be. And it's exactly what he contradicted when going all-out attack on Rodgers on that day.

The directive from the club is that he resigned, but reviewing Desmond's criticism, carefully, one must question why he allow it to get such a critical point?

Assuming the manager is culpable of all of the accusations that Desmond is claiming he's guilty of, then it's fair to inquire why was the coach not removed?

He has charged him of distorting information in public that did not tally with reality.

He says Rodgers' statements "played a part to a hostile environment around the club and encouraged hostility towards members of the management and the board. A portion of the abuse directed at them, and at their families, has been completely unwarranted and improper."

What an extraordinary charge, that is. Lawyers might be preparing as we speak.

His Aspirations Conflicted with Celtic's Model Again

Looking back to better times, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers lauded the shareholder at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers deferred to Dermot and, truly, to no one other.

It was Desmond who drew the heat when Rodgers' comeback happened, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most divisive hiring, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as other supporters would have described it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the difficulty for Leicester.

The shareholder had his back. Gradually, the manager turned on the persuasion, achieved the victories and the trophies, and an fragile peace with the supporters turned into a affectionate relationship once more.

There was always - always - going to be a point when his ambition came in contact with the club's business model, though.

It happened in his initial tenure and it transpired once more, with bells on, over the last year. He publicly commented about the sluggish process Celtic conducted their transfer business, the interminable waiting for prospects to be secured, then not landed, as was frequently the case as far as he was believed.

Time and again he stated about the need for what he termed "flexibility" in the market. The fans agreed with him.

Despite the organization spent unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the £11m Arne Engels, the costly Adam Idah and the significant further acquisition - all of whom have performed well so far, with Idah already having departed - Rodgers demanded more and more and, oftentimes, he expressed this in public.

He planted a bomb about a lack of cohesion within the club and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his remarks at his subsequent media briefing he would typically downplay it and almost reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? No, no, all are united, he'd say. It appeared like Rodgers was playing a risky game.

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that allegedly originated from a source close to the organization. It said that Rodgers was harming Celtic with his open criticisms and that his true aim was orchestrating his departure plan.

He desired not to be there and he was arranging his exit, that was the tone of the article.

The fans were angered. They then viewed him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his shield because his board members did not support his vision to bring success.

This disclosure was damaging, naturally, and it was intended to harm Rodgers, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. Whether there was a probe then we learned no more about it.

By then it was plain Rodgers was shedding the backing of the people in charge.

The frequent {gripes